From Wikipedia: The Tragic mulatto is a stereotypical fictional character that appeared in American literature during the 19th and 20th centuries. The "tragic mulatto" is an archetypical mixed race person (a "mulatto"), who is assumed to be sad or even suicidal because he/she fails to completely fit in the "white world" or the "black world". As such, the "tragic mulatto" is depicted as the victim of the society he/she lives in, a society divided by race. Because of society's reluctance to acknowledge ambiguity in racial classifications, this character is particularly vulnerable...

Generally, the tragic mulatta archetype falls into one of three categories:

A woman who can "pass" for white attempts to do so, is accepted as white by society and falls in love with a white man. Eventually, her status as a bi-racial person is revealed and the story ends in tragedy.

A woman appears to be white. It is believed that she is of Greek or Spanish descent. She has suffered little hardship in her life, but upon the revelation that she is mixed race, she loses her social standing.

A woman who has all the social graces that come along with being a middle-class or upper-class white woman is nonetheless subjected to slavery.

A common objection to this character is that she allows readers to pity the plight of oppressed or enslaved races, but only through a veil of whiteness - that is, instead of sympathizing with a true racial "other," one is sympathizing with a character who is made as much like one's own race as possible. The "tragic mulatta" often appeared in novels intended for women, also, and some of the character's appeal lay in the lurid fantasy of a person just like them suddenly cast into a lower social class after the discovery of a small amount of "black blood" that renders her unfit for proper marriage...

Please visit the Tragic Mulatto Myth site at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University.

Comentary by Steven F. Riley

The social stigma of 'race mixing' and the social upheaval which it was believed to have caused, was firmly imprinted into the American mindset with the publication of the 1842 anti-slavery short story, The Quadroons by Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880). Child, a Unitarian abolitionist and women's rights activist, introduced the world to the archetype that would be known as the 'Tragic Mulatto' that would last well into the middle of the 20th century. There are various trajectories for the 'Tragic Mulatto', but generally he (or usually she) is a person of mixed race, who passes for white and in doing so, becomes extremely successful in some endeavor (usually love). Inevitably, the 'Tragic Mulatto' is exposed and rejected by both racial groups, and the story ends -- as one might guess -- tragically. Though it was not Child's intent, the 'Tragic Mulatto' archetype was yet another tool (this time literary) used to preserve white hegemony. It did this by: Firstly reinforcing the notion of "white purity" that anyone not 100% 'white' was not white at all; secondly, further denigrating non-whites by implying that they all somehow secretly wished to be white and escape their lot in life; thirdly, effectively isolating mixed race individuals from both the whites they allegedly "wished to be" and the non-whites they wish to allegedly "wish to flee"; and fourthly, It leveled scorn upon those interracial unions that would bring such "hybrids" into the world.

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIÊ»I AT MÄ€NOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PUBLIC HEALTH

The multiracial population, or people who identify as two or more races, is one of the fastest growing segments of the population nationally, and about one-quarter of people in Hawaiâ€˜i are multiracial. How multiracial people identify racially or ethnically has been explored by researchers for nearly 100 years. Many theories developed during this time suggest that multiracial people develop an identity in a linear fashion, though others contend that ethnic and racial identity is situational and in reaction to a number different factors, ranging from individual-level factors like skin color to policy-level factors related to data collection. In addition, ethnic and racial identity have a demonstrated relationship with self-esteem and mental health outcomes. However, much of this research has been conducted on the continental United States. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the relationship between ethnic and racial identity and mental health across the lifespan in HawaiÊ»i.

Study 1: In the first study, the psychometric properties of the Multiracial-Heritage Awareness and Personal Affiliation scale (M-HAPA), which measures identity status, was tested with a cohort of multiracial HawaiÊ»i-based adolescents. After iterative exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analysis, this study found that the cohort endorsed five different identity statuses.

Study 2: The second study examined the relationship between identity status, self-esteem, and depression via structural equation modeling. This study found a highly significant relationship between identity status, self-esteem and depression, and that identity status and self-esteem mediated one another.

Study 3: A qualitative study that employed a timeline method examined the relationship between ecological factors that affect identity status and mental health across time in a sample of multi-racial adults in Hawaiâ€˜i. Thematic results from this study reflected the racism and health model and common factors across the lifespan that affect identity and mental health. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate the relationship between ethnic identity and mental health for multiracial individuals across the life course in HawaiÊ»i. Implications for public health practice, educators, and mental health practitioners include considerations for multiracial identity status in culturally grounded interventions, shifting practice to include cultural humility, and supporting multiracial individuals in their identity development through increased practitioner awareness of multiracial identity issues.